


Better in the Regifting

by aurora_ff



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Christmas, Christmas Presents, Declarations Of Love, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Marvel 616 (Freeform), POV Bucky Barnes, Pancakes, Physical Disability, Prompt Fic, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_ff/pseuds/aurora_ff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha returns from a failed SHIELD mission on Christmas Eve. Bucky takes care of her while she recovers from her exposure to a poison that has greatly affected her balance. As they take it easy, Bucky shares with Natasha some memories of his past Christmasses. He acknowledges just how much Natasha means to him. </p><p>This is a Buckynat Secret Santa gift for <a href="http://tangled-delphinium.tumblr.com/">tangled-delphinium</a>, who requested a work that included "post bad battle, love and soothing; lazy domestic days; and regaining memories and falling back in love."  I'm pretty sure I hit all three prompts.</p><p>Rated 'Teen' for adult language and alcohol use (no explicit sex or violence)</p><p>Happy Holidays!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better in the Regifting

It was easier in the winter to go unnoticed in public. Long sleeves and gloves were necessities for everyone and unremarkable. So in this ward he was simply another bundled-up relative slouched against the wall of St. Francis Hospital by the door bearing the first name of ‘Rebecca.’ This man was in his prime adulthood, handsome by most standards, but even with his hands shoved in the pockets of his wool coat and legs crossed over one another casually, there was something viscerally, unconsciously dangerous about him. No one approached him, even to offer a sincere ‘Merry Christmas’ in the passing by.

This visitor scanned the nurses’ station out of habit, the glass partition bedecked with red and green metallic garlands while yet another holiday tune echoed down three corridors. There were five exits less than fifty yards away. No alarms sounded nor were there tensed, hushed tones from the couple of attendants in scrubs. All of it routine. A calm, holy Christmas Eve, even if it was only just past eleven in the morning. Residents with their walkers shuffled by, caretakers and family ushered grandparents and great-grandparents in wheelchairs past him, some in colorful seasonal sweaters and hats.

This least threatening place in the world still set him on edge. A soldier’s instincts were not forgotten, if he could even still call himself that. He would never be what Steve was...

The latch to Becca’s room just to his right clicked with a different sound than that of a round being chambered, so the wary visitor lifted his head to meet eyes with his nephew, now well into his sixties. Jimmy had more than his name. He had the cleft chin and the long musician’s fingers that had also known a rifle in two tours of Vietnam. How strange for the visitor to look upon this aging man, his sister’s son, and see the white hair generously frosting the rich mink-brown that he himself would have owned many decades ago, if not for years-upon-years of cryogenic suspension. He was a science fiction story in a dime pulp novel at best. A nightmare at worst.

“She’s having a good day,” his nephew pronounced, a small smile on his lips. “It’s a good time.”

If it hadn’t been for Natalia, Buck may never have gotten the courage to make himself known to his descendants at all. _”They’re your_ family, _James. They’ll be happy to know you’re still alive.”_ So he had been careful, very careful. Jimmy and his wife were the only ones of an extended clan who knew that James Buchanan Barnes was more than a family legend. Ghostly visits mentioned by his sister could hardly be verified, not with her Alzheimer’s. The other terrible thing was, Bucky knew exactly the confusion, the episodes of blind aggression--

“Alright,” Buck nodded, trying to remember the best days of his childhood, like when he laughed and threw his sister up on his shoulders or swung her around and around till they both were dizzy. He moved efficiently into the single occupancy room, pulling off his cap.

“I’ll be back in a few. Getting coffee,” Jimmy explained, closing the door and leaving the two siblings alone.

Rebecca’s grandkids had drawn things like snowmen and Santas for her; a starry night above a savior’s stable; and taped them around her room to brighten it in the way only a child’s crude drawings could. There was even a Christmas tree of construction paper pinned up on the closet door opposite her single medical bed. She was looking at it, half-reclined, when Buck stepped in and slid his calloused hand over the bird-frail fingers on her lap.

“Merry Christmas Eve, troublemaker,” he greeted in that way he hoped, prayed, would reach her.

Her eyes brightened then as they turned to him. “Bucky. You’re back. They...you’re on leave, right?” 

“Yeah, Sis,” he confirmed, seeing the mischievous imp of a girl even through the fine spiderweb of wrinkles that crisscrossed her freckled skin. “All on the up-and-up. Couldn’t let too long go by without a visit, though. Brought you a present.”

He pulled out from his pocket the small package wrapped in a few layers of tissue paper and set it in her hands. Becca held it loosely, seeming in no hurry to open it. It was just a pair of silly, reindeer themed socks with a red nose sewn near to the middle toe, but ones that she could use and delight in, even if she forgot where they came from.

“I’ll open it later,” she declared. Then she asked, a single eyebrow twitching up, “Where’s the firecracker?” God, Jimmy was right. She was having a good day.

“Natasha?” he asked, surprised. Natalia had been gone for over a week, on a mission that S.H.I.E.L.D. had tapped her particular talents for. He knew better than to ask too many questions when the Black Widow went into the field. They were professionals after all. Unprompted, however, she promised her return to him, burning the oath in his mind with a searing kiss at the door of his apartment. She hadn’t said when.

“Hmm-hmm,” Becca confirmed. “She still seeing you?”

“You mean, ‘Is she still putting up with me?’,” he teased, as if Rebecca was still his little brat of a sister. “Yes. Been going on a while now. She’s out of town right now. Business.”

Like an idiot, he hadn’t bothered to count the months or note the benchmarks as most any other romantic couple would. Feeling his way through the passage of time, experiencing it quite differently than in just molasses-slow hours of surveillance or the lifetimes between heartbeats when locked in on a target, was like learning another language. He wasn’t good at it, but Natalia hadn’t said anything. Days on a calendar didn’t mean...never meant...much to the Winter Soldier. But who was he now, exactly?

His sister’s aged lips crooked up. “Told her you love her yet?”

Buck scoffed but he was pretty sure a bit of color came to his cheeks. In the life before, words like that got people killed or turned into pawns to compromise an operative. 

“Nat knows,” he defended, feeling that warm sensation in his chest when he thought of her, thought of the miracle it was when a flood of memories and time had certainly changed them from those Soviet days but the draw remained. “She’s _always_ known.”

Rebecca still clucked her tongue at her older brother. 

Bucky was just about to suggest she open her present already when his cell-phone vibrated in the inner breast pocket of his coat. He read the number on the front display as ‘Unlisted’ before answering. This was how S.H.I.E.L.D. worked.

His firecracker was on the other line. _”Hey, James. The op is a wash. Care for a little company over Christmas?”_

“Darlin’, you don’t ever have to ask,” he answered, giving Becca another light squeeze on her arm to indicate that yes, Natalia was calling.

_“There’s something though. The Division’s car will drop me off soon...but I’ll need a little help getting in the door.”_

Buck immediately began pacing in the small hospital room while a long string of swears was about to spill out of him. In the nick of time he remembered his infirmed sister three feet away. “What’s going on? What’s happened?!” And, yes, thoughts about Natalia with broken limbs or perforated organs clouded his mind. They made him want to punch the nearest thing or person that even considered at getting in his way, of coming between him and her. Again.

 _“I got exposed to a neurotoxin. It’s... affecting my balance. And before you ask, there’s no antidote.”_ She seemed rather careful with her words, like the very fact she got exposed in the first place was embarrassing. 

“I’m with Becca,” he responded, looking back to his sister who suddenly was draping the socks he had gotten her over her blanketed shins, as if considering the fit. “I’ll be back home in half an hour. Jesus F. Christ. Please--”

 _”James. Don’t worry and don’t rush,”_ she consoled. _“The techs and doctors said it will metabolize out by New Years.”_ Then more gently, _“Give my best. I’ll see you soon.”_ She hung up before he could get out something more.

Buck raked his free hand through his hair while he slid the phone back into his inner pocket, deciding just how much longer he could continue to spend with his sister before his worry got the best of him and he bolted back to his motorcycle. He would wait for his nephew to return; just to say goodbye.

His restless gaze landed on a recent picture of one set of grandchildren in a frame on the bedstand; Jimmy’s eldest daughter’s kids on an autumn vacation. “That Ricki? She’s grown a lot,” he finally calmed down enough to remark to Becca, who was now bundling up the wrapping into a compact ball.

“Watch this!” the infirmed woman crowed as the door opened again. She lobbed the paper projectile a good seven feet at the incoming figure, getting him on his upper thigh. She laughed, dryly and hoarsely, as Jimmy stooped to pick it up from the tiled floor and toss the wrapping paper in the small basket with his free hand before sipping his vending-machine-coffee with the other.

“The nurses say she does that with her napkins at meals. Hits them more often than not,” his nephew explained. “Guess the aim runs in the family.” Any other circumstance, Buck may have smiled.

Relieved that he didn’t have to dally a moment longer, he kissed his sister on the forehead with a whispered “love you,” before straightening up and turning to his other relative, “I’m sorry, Jim. Something’s come up and...I gotta take care of it before all the stores close.”

“Her,” Becca cut in. “Gotta take care of _her._ ”

Alright, that got a small smile. 

“I understand. But before you go…” Jimmy set down the coffee on the bedstand and rifled through a paper grocery bag next to the visitor’s chair, pulling out a decorated present a little larger than the size of a shoebox. “We were going through the attic over Thanksgiving and found some things we think belonged to you. Andrea thinks it’s a bit tacky, technically regifting you what’s yours. But I thought they may have some good memories.”

“Thanks, Jim,” he took the box and tucked it under his left arm, offering out his hand to his nephew. Bucky didn’t often hug. He didn’t want to alarm anyone with the too-solid feel under his coat. 

“Merry Christmas, Uncle,” Jimmy returned. “It was good for her to see you again.”

He slipped on his hat as he gave one last goodbye salute to his sister, like the Army man she believed he still was.

The gift went into a saddlebag as he warmed up the bike, debating on how many traffic laws he was willing to break to get back to his street with its black, half-melted islands of snow and to Natalia.

Buck sensed when a car was tailing him, and this wasn’t unexpected. It was, in fact, smart of Natalia to remain in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s chauffeured vehicle a discreet distance away from his flat rather than wait alone outside his apartment. She was quite aware of where the spare key was hidden to let herself in, but she must be in such condition that getting to it was next to impossible, certainly couldn’t use her skills at the moment to break in without setting him back on his deposit.

Normally, they wouldn’t be seen entering the building together, and often times she would be disguised. It was a spy’s caution. It was to protect the precious bubble of normalcy they had when together between missions, when Natalia would lounge about in ragged PJs while they watched Saturday morning cartoons or reruns of horrible 80’s sitcoms.

Buck wasn’t in the mood to be cautious. He stopped his motorcycle right in front of a fire-hydrant, steps away from the front lobby of his building. The helmet he abandoned carelessly on the curb. The black sedan double-parked feet from him and the driver left it idle as he got out and opened the rear door.

Natalia lolled her head from where it reclined against the grey leather headrest, giving him a small but drowsy wink. At least she was in her street clothes, although they weren’t really warm enough to protect her from the cold.

Buck, in one preternaturally graceful and fluid motion, advanced and scooped Natalia up into his arms, murmuring in her hair, “I’ve got you,” as the tightness in his chest and throat gave way to relief in that turning inside-out way that his heart had always done from the very beginning, their first kiss.

The only further attention he gave the driver was to assure he wasn’t following them, and the man’s crisp farewell was lost as he punched in his entrance code with the hand under her knees then pulled the steel door open, a bit of footwork that would have been the envy of most any martial artist.

“Y’know, James Buchanan Barnes,” she offered dryly, shifting a bit in his grasp. “I _can_ walk if I hold onto someone or something.”

“Humor me,” he bantered back, glad that Natalia still seemed to have all her mental sharpness. “I’m still practicing the knight-in-shining-armor thing.”

She scoffed as he set upon the stairs rather than fiddle with elevator buttons and nosey tenants asking him if the woman in his arms was drunk on too much spiked eggnog because _Baby, It’s Cold Outside._

On the stairs he could hear footsteps coming from several storeys above and take a door to another floor’s corridor if he needed. There was only one elevator, but two stairwells. This care to remain unseen and unnoticed was all was reflex, instinct; just as it was to bring Natalia, finally, home.

Natalia resigned herself to throwing her arms around his neck for the journey, but not two flights up she asked, “How’s your sister?” as she rested her head against his shoulder.

“Better than you are, at the moment,” was all he offered, when finally the door with a stencilled _6_ was in front of them. Then in nicer lettering, 616, the corner loft, wasn’t far from the stairwell. And, yes, it had been a tactical choice when he moved in.

“You’re still going to clear it properly, right?” she half-teased.

“Soon as you open the door with the keys you just lifted from my coat.” Unable to walk unaided and she was _still_ every inch the spy. Could he admire her any more?

He watched as she steadied one hand on the doorframe while the other was able to insert and twist the key, first to the deadbolt and then to the door latch proper, after only a couple of tries. That was good, Buck supposed, but then again he was no specialist in whatever she had been exposed to. 

She had to be fucking _hating_ this, this condition, and still not complaining. Of course, predators hid their weaknesses to the world. So would she.

Just as soon as Natalia kicked the door closed behind them with the flat of her foot, Buck helped her prop herself against the entranceway. His hand fell to the pistol hidden under a side-table also just inside the door. One thing could be said for late twentieth century interior design aesthetics: open floorplans left few places for anyone to hide.

No one had intruded. The black-out curtains were still drawn over the windows. Their sanctuary still intact.

“Let’s get you to the couch,” he said, replacing the gun and offering a steady arm. “I want the whole story.”

Natalia pitched and wobbled against him as if she was drunk. But where her legs were unsteady, her mind seemed just as clear and focused as usual. “It was a research facility S.H.I.E.L.D. suspected being funded by AIM. I was tasked with breaking in and getting the intel to prove it. Thought I knew all the security measures, but there was this gas...”

Buck shrugged slightly as step-by-deliberate-step, they paced across the darkly-stained wooden floors. “Makes sense though. Why kill an intruder when you can capture them and…”

Experiment. The Winter Soldier, a grand specimen himself. The Soviets’ answer to Captain America.

Natalia didn’t need to complete his sentence. She just gave him a squeeze on his upper arm. “The doctors say the toxin affects the balance centers in the inner-ear. It feels a lot like the room is spinning and the ground is constantly shifting. I just can’t get a fix, a lock.” In other words, a nightmare for a woman whose spacial awareness and acrobatic skills topped the charts.

She sighed with relief as she collapsed onto the cushions, closing her eyes.

Buck remained on his feet, trying to make better sense of her, of how much he should be panicked. “I’m surprised the S.H.I.E.L.D. med team released you in this state.”

“I insisted,” she returned. “Lots of the staff have families.” It was true; field agents more often than not were the orphans of the operation. One was even a Widow. “Besides, what were you planning for tomorrow except a bottle of whiskey and watching _Christmas in Connecticut_?”

Natalia knew him very, very well.

“The stores will be closing soon, and I’ve got almost nothing in the fridge,” he dodged. “So I figure..what? Milk, eggs, loaf of bread, lunch meat. Soup?” He decided to tease her back, to test her mood beyond the get-what-needs-to-be-done-and-survive-at-any-cost persona. “Beets? Cabbage? Vodka?”

She swore at him in Russian, clutching a couch pillow as if contemplating lobbing it at him but then holding it instead to her chest. “Butter. And pancake mix and syrup, _zhopa_.”

A fond and mild insult. It was then he decided that she would be alright, and that it was for the best that she was with _him_ and not circled around by a bunch of technicians, monitoring her in their seeming dispassionate way.

“Sure thing, toots,” he countered with a sly wink. “I’ll be back soon.”

* * *

Buck was lucky that no one was desperate enough to snatch his helmet or go through the roadster’s saddlebags while he had been preoccupied with seeing Natalia safe in his flat. When he returned with a number of plastic grocery bags hooked on his left and his nephew’s still-intact gift tucked under his right, he stalked his way down the long hallway (he rarely took the same route to his door twice in a row), hearing Christmas standards blaring from four doors and ‘I can’t stand your relatives’ arguments from another two.

Thinking back to roast holiday goose and all the trimmings, Buck mused that some things never changed. It was what traditions were, he supposed.

It was his and Natalia’s Christmas, the very first since this new chance with each other, and he still didn’t know how to make it special. Certainly he couldn’t go back in time; and she, God Almighty, was denied any sort of celebration that even hinted at religious devotion from the time of her birth till her defection, all thanks to the Revolution. What was absolute childlike magic to him, that wonder of a candlelight service and a fir tree laden in sparkling ornaments that he recalled dimly in sepia tones, Natalia never had and could never be nostalgic for.

He hadn’t even gotten Natalia a present. Everything Buck considered for weeks was just wrong, wrong, wrong. Too cheap or too cliche or too sappy or (the worst) so expensive that the gift seemed like a ploy to bargain for yet more of her love when he nearly wept each morning that he woke up next to her and saw her red hair spilled over pillow and pale shoulder, just a breath away and nearly overwhelmed at the blessing and grace of it. How could he find some stupid objects wrapped and ribboned good enough to compensate for the dozen times in the past months when she landed hot and hard in his arms, fresh from a mission, begging to be fucked just to be reminded that she was still alive and so very free _and so was he?_ He couldn’t. 

_Zhopa_. Asshole. Idiot.

Buck could stare at his door all day, struggling with his doubt over the situation, or he could go in with the goddamn groceries and take-out and see that Nat was doing better. Like a good soldier, he chose the latter.

* * *

“What’s in the box?”

Night had fallen and the Thai food had been eaten and they had watched all the Christmas-themed movies they could stand. Natalia managed, with carefully planned motions and the aid of a dining chair, to change into her lounge-about sleepwear and visit the bathroom. She was now entwined with him, her head resting in the crook of his arm.

Buck had set his nephew’s present on the windowsill across from the sofa, figuring the green and red wrapping provided a little holiday cheer to an otherwise undecorated apartment.

“I think the point of a present is that you don’t know what it is,” he returned, which earned him a jab of her elbow that he entirely deserved. “Seriously? Jimmy said it was some of my old stuff the family had kept.”

“You should open it,” she suggested.

“Tomorrow. Maybe.”

“Tonight.”

“It’s not Christmas yet.”

“In London it is,” she countered, which had him chuckling at her plain insistence. 

Surrendering, Buck gave Natalia a warm squeeze before retrieving it, setting the box on his lap. “I..uh...didn’t get you anything,” he admitted.

“It’s not like I was expecting to be back from the op so soon. You’ll think of something,” she mused, mysteriously.

He took off the bow first, setting it aside. “Everything’s closed except for that bodega on the corner, and I’m _not_ getting you a forty for the holidays.”

“You’ll think of something,” she repeated. Had Natalia not struggled even to stand, he would have considered riding with her to Rockefeller Center and renting two pairs of ice skates. But that was beyond impossible. So if easing her curiosity about some of his things from a lifetime ago would help take her mind off of the condition she was in, he’d oblige.

Buck caught himself being extremely careful removing the paper from the box, slicing the tape with a pocketknife so as not to tear it. The habit to save the wrapping asserted itself, a Depression-era vestige resurrected by the promise of the artifacts still to be unveiled.

Natalia was a close but quiet presence as he held his breath and opened the flaps to the cardboard box.

There was a weathered, small and slim photo album, black and white photos of childhood captioned with his mother’s neat cursive. His insignia and medals, displayed posthumously in a velvet lined case. Yellowed correspondence between him and Rebecca. All of bore his name, but whether it was truly _his_ anymore was quite debatable.

“If this is too hard, James…” Natalia began, perhaps seeing something on his face as he fingered through it.

He shook his head slightly. “There’s some good things here. It’s just. Well, it may take me a while to recognize it all. Take it in.”

Down at the very bottom, of such a shape that it almost seemed like the floor of the box, was four or five square envelopes of thin cardboard, all a bit tattered, a bit stained, stacked on top of one another.

His own laugh surprised him as he pulled them out of the box. He could feel the circular indents made by the contents within.

“What are they?!” Natalia asked, perhaps a little shocked at how quickly the brooding fell from him.

“Instant morale,” Buck responded as he set all but one back in the box. He began to explain. “We were behind the Axis lines more often than not, working with local resistance cells to get fixes on HYDRA facilities. Pinky had a suitcase crank player, and I carried these. We’d, ah...after planning, have a little impromptu social dancing, remind ourselves of what we were all fighting for. Make closer friends with our collaborators.”

Natalia’s voice was thick with amusement. “Friends, huh? You know what they say about that language without words. Universal.”

Buck found himself licking his lips subconsciously. “Those Underground gals...God, they were inventive. And everyone had in the back of their heads that they may not live beyond tomorrow.” He slid the old 78 record out of its improvised casing to glance at the title, then let it drop back in. “We were careful though. Last thing a woman needed while keeping on her toes was a-- Hell.” 

He realized where his mouth was running, and abandoned his nostalgia over spectres of yesteryear for _her_ , still alive and warm and with him. He rested one hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes, eyes that swam, as if trying to reconcile what her hacked brain was feeding her about up-and-down, right-and-left. “How are you doing, Nat? I mean _really,_ with being laid up like this?”

She shrugged. “Alright, I guess. Keeping my eyes closed helps, imagining I’m on some small boat in the middle of a cyclone and just riding along. And I think a lot about going back there and finding out just which group of bastards thought this up and seeing how they liked being lab-rats for a change.” She stifled back a yawn, shaking her head suddenly as if to drive away drowsiness. 

“Tired?” 

“Pretty exhausted,” she admitted. 

“Then let’s get you to bed.” 

“It’s only eight-thirty.” 

“Brooklyn time.” 

She huffed, being caught at her own game and being careless because in this sanctuary, she didn’t need to measure every word for how it would sound to a mark. 

“No fuss now,” he chided. “Becca insisted I take care of you.” 

In his arms and on the way to the bedroom, Natalia said, “Last time we visited, she insisted that I take care of _you._ ” 

Buck shrugged. “Then let’s do one better and take care of each other.” 

“Deal,” she agreed before he aided her in pulling back the covers and tucking her in. She reached up to trail her fingers over his lips, whispering. “I’m glad I’m here. You’re here.” 

He bent down and gave her a gentle and fond kiss on her cheek. 

“I’ll get you a glass of water,” he offered, padding back to the kitchen to fill a glass from the pitcher he kept in the fridge, cool and crisp and pure, like the alpine snows of the winter of 1944. 

When he returned, Natalia was already out, so he just set the glass on the nightstand and turned out the lights. Buck stood in the doorway for a while, chatting with those ghosts of Christmas Past and Present in his head as if they all were old comrades. 

“I’ll think of something,” he vowed quietly, pulling the bedroom door closed and remembering the cabinet where he stashed that bottle of rye whiskey. 

* * *

Buck awoke the next morning to Natalia snuggled up beside him, her right hand having a fistful of his charcoal grey t-shirt above his chest. With the toxin still in her system, she could have easily dreamed of being tossed overboard and drowning. So he twisted and wrapped his metal arm around her shoulders, hoping the steadiness of the appendage, the familiarity of it, felt like a buoy and not a vice. The grip on his shirt loosened, and she took in a deep, restful sigh. 

He glanced at the digital readout of his alarm clock and decided to ignore his bladder for a little longer just to lightly doze again and hold her. Christmas. With no tree or mistletoe or stockings. But still a blessedly good day. 

Eventually he had to get up, and as he shifted, it awoke her. He and Natalia were always light sleepers. 

He pushed one wild, scarlet lock away from her eyes. “Good morning, _moya zvezda._ Gonna need help to the bathroom?” 

“I’ll fuckin’ crawl, thank-you-very-much,” she groaned. “After you, though.” 

He untangled himself from her and did his usual routine of grooming with a shave and a shower. Yes, she’d probably have to either wobble back and forth from door-frame to door-frame or go on hands and knees to get into the attached bathroom. But he was intimately aware and often proud that there were some things that Natalia was insistent on doing for herself. It couldn’t be any different between them. 

Still, he wasn’t shy about toweling himself off in front of her and getting dressed as she righted herself on the edge of the bed. 

“I’ll make breakfast,” he offered, throwing a maroon henley over his head and tugging it down. 

“Pancakes?” 

“What else? I’m an old dog.” 

An hour later, when he had presented the pyramid of apple-spice pancakes layered from base to tip like a Christmas tree with carved fruity star on a toothpick topping the work, replete with whipped-cream-from-a-can garlands between the layers, Natalia quirked her mouth and asked, “So, how long did you spend on the internet last night?” 

He passed her the bottle of maple syrup. “Merry Christmas, darlin’.” 

Another hour later, curled together on the couch again, he slid his present from out underneath and held in front of her. The wrapping paper was nothing new, neither was the gift within. 

“James,” Natalia began. “Why...why one of these? You don’t...we can’t even play them.” She was trained to put little details together. Obfuscating the object would be next to impossible. 

“Just open it,” he urged, turning off the television. “And don’t be shy about it. We weren’t as kids.” 

So she went at the package haphazardly, a satisfying rip and tear of paper. Then she eased the treasure from its sleeve. 

It was indeed one of those 78s. The gold lettering upon black that he knew so well was revealed to her. 

‘I’ll...I’ll Be Home for Christmas.’” Natalia read, her eyes unable to steady for long on the print. “I’ve heard this. Big band...right?” 

“Yeah,” he remarked. “Came out during the war. When Steve and I and the boys were in the thick of it.” 

She placed it carefully on the coffee table and twisted in his arms. “I wish I was in better shape. That we could…” 

“Dance?” he offered, crooking his eyebrow while his hand slid down to the small of her back. 

“Mm-hmm,” she nodded, and Buck witnessed the true extent of her frustration for the first time, a glistening upon her lashes. 

“We still can. Just go with it.” 

Buck pulled out the S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued laptop from under the couch, too. He opened it up, bringing it back to life. With a press of a key to play what he had queued, the band struck up and Crosby began to croon, a voice from beyond the decades. Audible, but not so loud as to drown out his words. 

Natalia seemed half intrigued and half confused until he reached back to her, lifting her up off the couch and to a bit of clear space behind it. “Hold onto me. There. Put your feet on top of mine.” 

_You can count on me._

He guided Natalia just as his had done with his sister, when he was first teaching Becca’s uncoordinated limbs and Buck was looking to better his moves for all those sophisticated dames he imagined impressing once-upon-a-time. 

He held her close as she rested her besocked weight upon his arches, his left arm slid just under her shoulders while his right had the more delicate task of interlacing with her fingers. 

He began to sway, moving his feet side-to-side in concert with the easy rhythm, and thus, moving hers by the forces of gravity and friction, however dizzy she was. 

_Christmas Eve will find me. Where the love-light gleams._ Natalia folded into him, hooking her chin around the angle of his neck and shoulder. Wordlessly and slowly, they danced to the classic, as he had done decades upon decades ago with those other gals. 

But this, with her? This was different, too, much different. He wasn’t so cock-sure anymore. So willing to dive headlong into danger for the sheer glory of it. Setting things right, yes; undo the damage; that was needed for their rest at night and they both honored that with each other. Yet he had been so guarded, not give voice and acknowledging and risk declaring how very fucking much Natalia meant to him. 

“Natalia?” he asked, as the orchestra swelled again and for the final time. 

“What is it, James?” she murmured. 

He may be an idiot and an ass, but he’d no longer be a coward. No longer give their enemies that victory. 

As his heart pounded wildly in his chest, he whispered into her ear. “I love you.” 

She chuckled lowly and kissed his neck. “Told you you’d think of something.” She sighed what seemed to him a happy sigh. “Love you, too, James. Merry Christmas.” 

“And New Year’s Eve, if you’re up for it, we’ll go out dancing. Real dancing.” 

“Better make sure my stamina is back,” she suggested, her words heavy with intent as they swayed. “Before we go and paint the town.” 

“I think I know a few ways we could test that out,” he purred, now entirely sensitized to Natalia’s curves pressed up against him. “Make sure you’re on top of this.” 

“Should start slowly though. Work ourselves up to that,” Natalia hinted, then did more than hint. “Could start right now.” 

Buck grinned widely and danced her into the bedroom. 

**Author's Note:**

> While I mostly write my Buckynat as an MCU/Comic hybrid, I kept this strictly 616 universe per the prompter's request.
> 
> Some Russian translation:
> 
>  _zhopa_ = ass; asshole (mild insult)  
>  _moya zvezda_ = my star (traditional Russian pet name)
> 
> I have a LOT of Buckynat feels, so I encourage anyone that liked this to look over [my other BuckyNat works.](http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bcharacter_ids%5D%5B%5D=80648&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&user_id=aurora_ff)


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